People around the country are relying more and more on CBD to help them with mood disorders, pain and stress. Recently, this trend has spread to dogs. This has led to many people asking the question: What is the proper CBD dosage for dogs?
People around the country are relying more and more on CBD to help them with issues ranging from mood disorders and insomnia to pain and stress.
Recently, this trend has spread animals, especially dogs. CBD can be useful for a dog’s overall health, disease prevention, nausea, anxiety, and issues with inflammation. Studies are just starting to be done on this subject, but there is a lot of good evidence from trials on humans that can be applied to dogs as well. This has led to many people asking the question that we’ll be answering today: What is the proper CBD dosage for dogs?
Potential Risks with Too High a CBD Dosage for Dogs
Dogs can potentially reap many of the same benefits as humans from CBD use, and the side effects also seem to be equally negligible. Possible issues that may result from giving your dog too high a dose of CBD include drowsiness, diarrhea, and nausea. These are typically minor and can be avoided by starting with a small dose and watching your dog closely to see how it affects them. Even in extreme cases where your dog managed to take many times the recommended dosage, dangerous side effects aren’t likely, so you have no serious risks to worry about if that happens. If your dog shows negative signs from using CBD, it’s a sign that you should lower the dosage, or stop administering it in worst cases.
When to Consider CBD for Dogs
While there is still a need for more testing, people seem to be getting good results giving their dogs CBD to help with a variety of health problems, such as anxiety, seizures, pain, inflammation, bowel disease, and even appetite issues. It can also be used to promote heart health and protect the nervous system. We were able to find recent studies with promising results relating to CBD for dogs being used to reduce seizure frequency and reduce pain in dogs with osteoarthritis. Some of the health conditions it is claimed to treat also come from looking at the more well-studied benefits that CBD has on humans and extrapolating those that are likely to benefit dogs.
Proper CBD Dosage for Dogs
While determining the correct dose for your dog will likely require a little experimentation, there is a lot of information out there about how much to use for different conditions. The main factors that will come into play when determining the best CBD dosage for your dog are: concentration of the oil, how big the dog is, and whether you’re trying to solve a minor issue like anxiety or a major one such as insomnia or pain.
If you’re looking to provide therapeutic benefits to dogs with issues like stress and anxiety, a lower dosage may be effective. We recommend starting with 0.5 mg of CBD for every 10 pounds of body weight. It can take up to an hour for the CBD to take effect, so monitor your pet to see if desired results are achieved. If not, you can move the dosage up gradually using .5 mg per 10-pound increments. A good medium CBD dosage for dogs that will help with many issues is around 2 mg of CBD per 10 pounds, but it’s best to start lower than that to both make sure it doesn’t make them too drowsy and also help them acclimate to it.
The CBD dosage for dogs varies a bit depending on your particular dog, so there’s no need to stress if you don’t see results at lower dosages, though it is recommended to stay below 5 mg per 10 pounds. For daily therapeutic benefits you should readminister the CBD approximately every eight hours, but it can also be used for those times when you know a stressful event is coming up. For example, if you know that there is a storm in the forecast, and your dog is like many that fear thunder, you can give them a preemptive dose to save them the stress.
Some conditions, like insomnia, require higher doses. According to a 2019 study, the duration of sleep was significantly raised for animals given between 4.5 mg/lb and 18 mg/lb. It is still recommended, however, that you start with a lower dosage and see how your dog responds. CBD may also help alleviate many of the symptoms associated with insomnia in dogs, such as arthritis and itchiness from allergies. Other symptoms that may require higher doses include pain and cancer symptoms such as severe loss of appetite, or seizures.
Conclusion
CBD can provide myriad benefits to your dog that are definitely worth looking into, especially if they suffer from anxiety, insomnia, allergies, or seizures. Unlike many over-the-counter remedies, CBD is natural, and you don’t have much to fear in the way of serious side effects or accidentally going over the recommended dosage. Many people stress out about starting their dog on CBD because it can be difficult to find information on the correct CBD dosage for dogs, but this article should take some of the guesswork out of the equation. Just don’t forget to start with a low dosage and scale it up until you get the desired results while keeping the max dosage recommendations in mind, and hopefully your furry friend will be feeling better in no time!
